phoenixgold

iTrader: (2)

I'm not surprised in the slightest that HMV are going under. Their rip-off policies are horrendous. Buy someone a box set for Christmas on Xmas eve for £60. £30 in the boxing day sales! They are top priced for everything. Chart CD's and DVD's cheaper in supermarkets before you even compare to online. Then there's the staffing levels, sorry, but if I've got to queue half way around the shop to get served, forget it. (Usual story at Meadowhall).

There are so many things they could do better with. If they don't give people what they want at a reasonable price, then they will take the business elsewhere.

Sorry for the staff, but they've been let down by the management.

SRSport

Richer sounds are excellent. Their realistically priced 5 year warranty is the deal winner for new as well.

When it comes to retailers their complete refusal to negotiate only serves to leave them open to exploitation. You go to the store to view a product, benefiting from the shop floor service and then buy on line.
A good example is a bookcase I found online for £75. I went to the local furniture hop to see if they had one. It was up for £95. I explained te online price and asked if the would offer it for £85 as I am happy to pay the extra for the shopping experience. They told me they were a family business and cant compete with online companies as they find it hard in this day and age so they couldn't do anything on the price. I thanked them and bought it online.

I'm not interested in any sob stories of who runs it. They could have sold it to me, still made a significant profit (they're around £40 whole sale price) and had another one in the next day.

Funkii Munkii

Astonishingly HMV had a 20% share of the UK CD/DVD/Download market last year !! so obviously there were a lot of people stil using the stores as well as their online services.

It was better when it was a stand alone shop in Oxford Street imho. Long gone are the days of Harlequin, Our Price, Harum etc where you'd walk in and there would be a 30p bargain box of recent 7" singles and reduced 12" singles, happy days

As for Richer Sounds, again I prefer the original model rather than todays incarnation, stack em high sell em low catalogue returns, end of range etc etc, you could barely move in the London Bridge store for boxes of this and that and they weren't in bed with half a dozen manufacturers in those days either, that said Tottenham Court Rd was exactly the same with it's multitude of HiFi stores.

TelBoy

Reports just in say HMV have had their worst day since records began

Luan Pra bang

Not really a shame IMO, lets give some room for the small family business to row again, you know the ones who actually pay tax.

Luan Pra bang

One thing about richer sounds though is that they try to sell you extended warranties on products that have 3 year warranties anyway. They also sell LG products that are guaranteed to break quickly. Its a bit like Maplins, everything I have ever got from Maplins has broken in a stupidly short time frame, they sell the lowest quality crao ever a bit like the budget brands at Richer sounds.

SRSport

Richer sounds do sell some rubbish but they do have some very good deals if you are savvy.
Take the Denon amps they had and their Monitor Audio idecks for £79. That with the £9.99 5 year warranty is incredibly impressive.

kevo10

i may have misheard the news at lunchtime that vouchers bought as xmas gifts wont be redeemable. if thats the case , its ****ty as they must have known this was on the cards. as i said, may have misheard it

hodgy0_2

the chances of redeeming vouchers for hard cash is extremely small, to the point of non-existence

ScoobyJawa

yes but more to the point prior to xmas as said they must have known , yet still sold vouchers they knew they wouldn't be able to honour in the very near future. Bordering on fraudulent.

Mouser

No pun intended

TelBoy

What??

The Dogs B******s

Boom Boom

hodgy0_2

Probably was fraudulent

But the chances of of anyone being prosecuted for fraud is extremely small, to the point of non-existence

TelBoy

If only somebody would invent the word negligible

hodgy0_2

The chances of that are pretty small

TelBoy

Infinitesimal

paulr

Oh rubbish !!!!!!!!

HMV are a victim of the digital revolution. They also have a rubbish website. Even last week i looked for a boxed set of dvd's. £30 on HMV, £11 on Amazon. Other retailers combine the two, John Lewis for example., or Boots. I see stuff in Boots, then order it @ Bots online. I see stuff in HMV, then order it off Amazon.

As for the rest of the tosh, the UK is going nowhere, but we all need to accept change.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

The trouble with companies like HMV is they're selling a commodity product with no way to differentiate themselves. A CD or DVD is absolutely identical whether I buy it retail or online, and there's nothing to be gained by being able to physically pick up the empty case in person prior to purchase.

Even idly browsing for ideas is better online. if I search a web site for a particular artist, I expect to see recommendations for similar artists and other music I might actually like. A retail store, with no categorisation beyond sections labelled "rock", "pop", "classical" and so on, simply offers a worse experience.

Last time I bought anything from HMV was the day I'd just bought a TV and Blu-ray player, and specifically wanted something to watch that evening. On any other occasion, I'm happy to wait a couple of days for postage - the delay isn't nearly as important as having the music I actually want available, in stock and at a fair price.

paulr

One thing that is unfair is HMV have to pay UK corporation tax, Amazon don't.

hodgy0_2

quite, and as someone above pointed out 4000 people potentially relying on some sort of state benefit

real double whammy, downward spiral scenario

although I do take the point about HMV’s inability to change – years of useless, clueless, unimaginative, and lazy management no doubt

and local council’s stubborn refusal to accept the need for a change of policy in town planning/parking etc – years of useless, clueless, unimaginative, and lazy management no doubt